Piers Akerman
PRIME Minister Kevin Rudd and Treasurer Wayne Swan do not inspire confidence when they attempt to reassure Australians about the current economic crisis.
As former NSW treasurer Michael Costa said bluntly in The Australian on Friday: “Listening to Kevin Rudd at Council of Australian Governments meetings as he tried to connect the global economic situation to the more mundane items on the national reform agenda was often excruciating.
“Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of economics would have quickly concluded, as I did, that the Prime Minister didn’t have a good understanding of these issues.”
Rudd tries to look grave and prime ministerial, and Swan does his best to look comfortable in meetings with international economic boffins, but both fail. They don’t look natural. They look as if they’re acting and, increasingly rapidly, the wider electorate is starting to see what too few saw before last November’s election.
The swings against Labor in Victorian and NSW by-elections, its near-death experience in the Northern Territory and its demise in Western Australia, all indicate a rising degree of displeasure.
That trend continued in NSW in the recent local council elections and the polls indicate that voters are waiting to punish Labor in the by-elections again this weekend - as they should - given the level of corruption and incompetence which marks this 13-year-old government.
===
ABC Still Fail To Properly Evaluate Worth of Howard Government
The ABC journos get their snigger worth here, but still fail ..
Meanwhile, online, here is how one punter describes things .. in reply to the accurate statement that the Howard government was Australia's most effective.
effective Austr Govt ever?===
policy ?
They rode off keatings work added a gst that was not their idea it was ripped off .
Fiddled with superannuation that keating put in but never raised it.
China was the reason for our mining growing like it did not the liberal party.
Keatings work during the 80 got us through the asian crisis and stoped us going into recession .
Recession would have hit australia in howards first two years in office.
Howard is on the record of saying keating set us up.
Turning a kids’ fair into a landmine
Andrew Bolt
From the Border Mail:
TIPTOEING through a mock landmine filled field was just one of the activities that captured the attention of thousands of youngsters at yesterday’s Wodonga Children’s Fair…
===
McCain unleashes the Nazis
Andrew Bolt
Frank Rich of the New York Times gleefully prosecutes the media’s latest case against John McCain - that he’s unleashed the inner Nazi in his supporters:
(He) has pumped up the Weimar-like rage at McCain-Palin rallies...
Appalling activities of Democrats
McCain being graceful .. press attacks.
===
Seals warming to the climate
Andrew Bolt
A global warming panic from 2001:
WWF, the conservation organization, today said that global warming poses a new threat to the ringed seals of Lake Saimaa, in Finland, which with only 250 individuals left in the wild, is the most endangered seal species in the world. - of course there is more of them, now. - ed.
===
Pick the experts, pick the findings
Andrew Bolt
It all depends on whom you hand-pick, doesn’t it?
THE Rudd Government is under intense pressure to wind back the hardline intervention into Northern Territory communities after its own hand-picked review called for a softer approach, describing the Howard government’s dramatic move last year as racially discriminatory.
===
Cometh the hour…
Andrew Bolt
Governments like a crisis, provided it’s not of their own making. It’s a case of “no World War 2, no Churchill”, and even the worst can suddenly repackage themselves as leaders. Observe:
Prime Minister Gordon Brown gained support among the British public after the financial crisis intensified, the Sunday Times said, citing an opinion poll by YouGov Plc. Brown’s ruling Labour Party had support from 33 percent of voters, an increase of seven points in the past month...
===
Cash coming
Andrew Bolt
As I said on Insiders on Sunday, if you wanted to stimulate the economy you couldn’t go past tax cuts - and before Christmas. And, bingo:
A MULTI-BILLION-DOLLAR cash handout to consumers to lift spending ahead of Christmas is under consideration in an attempt to boost the economy and stave off the expected effects of the global economic crisis.
===
Macintyre denies what he preaches
Andrew Bolt
Professor Stuart Macintyre, for many years a member of the Communist Party and now a Labor member, now heads a review on what the Rudd Government should include in a national history curriculum. But he says we shouldn’t assume the obvious:
There is a danger of exaggerating the political divisions over school history… The opportunity is too important to be wasted in polemics and point-scoring.
===
THE WANTING
Tim Blair
Demonic children—an unusually influential US demographic—continue tormenting their elders, as the New York Times reports:
Sometimes, Jennifer Ross feels she cannot make a move at home without inviting the scorn of her daughters, 10-year-old Grace and 7-year-old Eliza. The Acura MDX she drives? A flagrant polluter. The bath at night to help her relax? A wasteful indulgence. The reusable shopping bags she forgot, again? Tsk, tsk.
===
DOWN WITH THE USURERS
Tim Blair
Academic throwbacks aren’t the only folk excited about recent economic developments:
Muslims should take advantage of the global financial crisis to build an economic system compatible with Islamic principles, influential Sunni cleric Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi said on Sunday.
===
NOT GOING TO LOSE
Tim Blair
Paul Krugman, crazy person, four years ago:
There was actually a kind of revealing moment recently—Bush gave an interview, was more or less dragooned into an interview on Meet The Press and the interviewer said: “Well, what if you lose the election?” And he said: “I’m not going to lose the election.”
===
CITY RIVEN
Tim Blair
“On the face of it,” observes Andrew West, “Sydney looks like a city riven by ethnic and cultural hostility.”
No comments:
Post a Comment